Relationship Between Miss Havisham and Estella in Great Expectations by Dickens (Essay Example)

Miss Havisham and Estella are prominent characters in Great Expectations, and their relationship enriches the novel and deepens our understanding of the past and present situation that the novel is based on. Our understanding of the relationship between Miss Havisham and Estella is constructed around the knowledge that Miss Havisham has raised Estella to have a hatred of the male gender after Miss Havisham herself was abandoned on her wedding day, provoking the state she has been in throughout Estella’s childhood. This fact in itself creates a sense of disturbance. In the extracts where they are both present, Dickens initiates a sense of control that Miss Havisham has over Estella, in a possessive manner, and leaving hidden meaning in the quotes he uses to describe Miss Havisham to suggest darker themes, such as cannibalism and violence.

Dickens’ language used by Miss Havisham when talking to and about Estella increases the disturbing nature of their relationship. Miss Havisham whispers to Pip, “Love her, love her, love her”. The repetition of this short command signifies the desperation and intensity of her feelings towards Estella, whether it be affection or more likely, a feeling of obsessive possession. In addition, after Miss Havisham commands Pip to love Estella she goes on to explain what love is; “blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself  and against the whole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter”. Speaking as a mother, it is extremely unsettling how Miss Havisham describes love, the one thing she should be giving to her daughter, Estella. This lack of affection could stem from the fact that Miss Havisham’s mother died when she was a baby, therefore she has never experienced the motherly love that she should be providing Estella. Her ever-increasing poor mental state can help deduce the nature of her and Estella’s relationship – hierarchical and disconcerting. Furthermore, Dickens plays with the topic of grooming in their relationship; as implied throughout the novel, Miss Havisham has an uneasing physical dependence on Estella, shown when she clutches her close in chapters when they are together. When Miss Havisham “took up a jewel from the table and tried its effect upon her fair young bosom and against her pretty brown hair”. By putting this jewellery on Estella, Miss Havisham uses the jewellery to objectify Estella and call attention to her sexuality, increasing the plausibility of the notion that Miss Havisham is using Estella as a beautiful object to attract the male sex with the one desire to seek revenge.

Dickens plays with the idea of violence, in particularly cannibalism, to further accentuate the unsettling relationship between Miss Havisham and Estella. Miss Havisham kisses Estella’s hand with a “ravenous intensity”, which sparks the idea of eating and even cannibalism. This animalistic nature is found in several points in Great Expectations, including when Magwitch threatened to eat Pip’s cheeks, and Magwitch’s “ravenous” eating when he is with Pip. Pip's notion that Miss Havisham appears to want to devour Estella illustrates Miss Havisham's position of ownership over Estella and the damage her influence causes her daughter. Rather than seeing Estella as a whole person, Miss Havisham objectifies her by breaking her into the separate pieces that together create her vehicle of revenge. When Pip refers to Estella as a “beautiful creature," he implies how Miss Havisham has transformed Estella from a person into an object whose sole value comes from its beauty. The overall idea that Dickens has created of this vicious devouring creates an unease within the reader. Furthermore, Miss Havisham “hung upon Estella's beauty, hung upon her words, hung upon her gestures, and sat mumbling her own trembling fingers while she looked at her, as though she were devouring the beautiful creature she had reared”. The repetition of the word ‘hung’ conveys the powerful nature of Miss Havisham’s emotions towards her daughter, foreseeing inevitable death and pain. Once again, Dickens has presented the theme of cannibalism when he describes Miss Havisham metaphorically “devouring” Estella. In addition, Miss Havisham keeps “Estella's hand drawn through her arm and clutched in her own hand, she extorted from her". This reveals Miss Havisham’s dependency yet control of Estella. Extortion takes force, therefore closely related to threat and violence within their relationship. The ’clutch’ she holds Estella with against herself represents the metaphorical chain that Estella is tied in – Estella is Miss Havisham’s possession, and this insidious and sinister movement continues to hint their disturbing relationship.

Dickens’ portrayal of Estella’s childhood greatens the readers understanding of Miss Havisham and Estella’s disturbing relationship. During the entirety of Estella’s childhood she has been trapped in Satis House, surrounded by Miss Havisham’s depressing past and a mother who shows no sympathy for anybody but herself with the yearning desire to seek revenge on men. Estella is a metaphorical prisoner, as well as Miss Havisham, yet Estella’s confinement has been inflicted by somebody else, her own mother. The lack of Estella’s freedom has supressed her true feelings and emotions, and her only influence coming from her mother, an eccentric and extremely unusual woman with clear obsessive feelings towards Estella. Dickens only begins to explain the unusual behaviour between the mother and daughter, especially the underlying hints of violence, cannibalism and obsession. It is clear that Miss Havisham’s original motive of meaning to “save her from misery like mine”, has backfired and eternally ruined Estella’s chances of experiencing love, as proven when Estella repeatedly warns Pip that she cannot love him and never learned how to love. This could stem from the fact that Miss Havisham herself never had a mother, “her mother died when she was a baby”, therefore she has never experienced maternal affection that she should be giving Estella.

In conclusion, Dickens introduces many different topics to compare the connection between Estella and Miss Havisham to, in turn increasing to the disturbing nature of this mother-daughter relationship. Primarily, the references to violence and uncomfortable subjects such as grooming and extreme emotional and physical dependency make their relationship so uneasing.